Hay and Straw?
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redtailgal
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One is hollow and the other is not.........
WildRoseBeef
Range nerd & bovine enthusiast
Typically straw is more yellow or white in colour than hay. Hay is supposed to be green, since fodder cut for hay has not gone past maturity and thus turned brown. Bales that have been exposed to the elements, like round bales typically are, will have a more brownish-gold tinge to it. If you pull out some material from inside the bale (the first inch or so), it will be green. Also, hay has finer material than straw, since the grass that is cut for hay is always going to be thinner stemmed than the grass that straw comes from which is wheat, oats, barley, rye, or triticale. And yes, barley, oats, rye, triticale wheat, rice AND corn are grasses, they've just been artificially selected and modernized to produce larger, denser seeds (thus thicker stems to hold and grow such large seeds) than their smaller, more wilder cousins like Johnson grass, fescue, brome, bluegrass, etc. (There are many people around that don't know that the grains that are used to make breads and pastries actually come from grasses.)
Hay can also have stemmy material from legumes like aflalfa, clover, sanfoin, etc. The stems from legumes are more denser and coarser than stems from those grasses raised for grain crops. You can also notice the leaf structure too: legumes have rounder leaves than grasses. Straw will not have legume stems and leaves (nor grass leaves) in it to the same amount that hay does.
Another difference between straw and hay is that straw tends to be much drier in content (at around 10% moisture) than hay (which has a moisture content of 20%). This drier content makes the bales much lighter and more fluffier. Straw bales, though the same size, tend to weigh 1/3 to 1/2 the weigh of hay bales. Small square straw bales are really light to throw around. Not so much with hay! I remember being able to actually get a bale of straw (large round) moving from shoving on it enough, especially if I could unroll it for our steers. A hay bale, though, will stand as stoic as a boulder.
Hay can also have stemmy material from legumes like aflalfa, clover, sanfoin, etc. The stems from legumes are more denser and coarser than stems from those grasses raised for grain crops. You can also notice the leaf structure too: legumes have rounder leaves than grasses. Straw will not have legume stems and leaves (nor grass leaves) in it to the same amount that hay does.
Another difference between straw and hay is that straw tends to be much drier in content (at around 10% moisture) than hay (which has a moisture content of 20%). This drier content makes the bales much lighter and more fluffier. Straw bales, though the same size, tend to weigh 1/3 to 1/2 the weigh of hay bales. Small square straw bales are really light to throw around. Not so much with hay! I remember being able to actually get a bale of straw (large round) moving from shoving on it enough, especially if I could unroll it for our steers. A hay bale, though, will stand as stoic as a boulder.
